And, as a BusinessWeek article makes clear, there's no way AT&T will be able to meet the traffic demands of iPhone users any time in the next few years. (The article also confirms that AT&T has deliberately delayed MMS and tethering because it simply can't handle the traffic.)

Nice. This amuses me whenever iFanboys go on a frothing tirade about something Verizon might have done with Bluetooth five years ago.

floor9:And, as a BusinessWeek article makes clear, there's no way AT&T will be able to meet the traffic demands of iPhone users any time in the next few years. (The article also confirms that AT&T has deliberately delayed MMS and tethering because it simply can't handle the traffic.)

Nice. This amuses me whenever iFanboys go on a frothing tirade about something Verizon might have done with Bluetooth five years ago.

Barakku:floor9: "There are simply too many users using data-intensive applications," Donovan said. "Users expecting to just pick up their phone and use 3G data whenever they want are being unreasonable."

I don't seem to have this "network problem" of which you speak over here on Verizon.

People using common features on a very expensive phone with an expensive plan? Unreasonable!

actually, the phone itself isn't expensive. $99 if you sign up for a new contract. but, yeah, the $100/month kinda sux.

Maybe your dumbass should have thought about the ability of your network to handle the traffic when signing the exclussivity agreement with Apple? But yeah, everyone loves your half-ass customer service and shiatty network speed, so you really have nothing to worry about when you agreement expires. Nothing at all.

FlashHarry:Barakku: floor9: "There are simply too many users using data-intensive applications," Donovan said. "Users expecting to just pick up their phone and use 3G data whenever they want are being unreasonable."

I don't seem to have this "network problem" of which you speak over here on Verizon.

People using common features on a very expensive phone with an expensive plan? Unreasonable!

actually, the phone itself isn't expensive. $99 if you sign up for a new contract. but, yeah, the $100/month kinda sux.

Well, very should probably be on the plan, but it's a 500 dollar phone so it can access those high-bandwidth features...

FlashHarry:actually, the phone itself isn't expensive. $99 if you sign up for a new contract. but, yeah, the $100/month kinda sux.

It's finally approaching reasonable, aside from that ridiculous monthly fee. The current iPhone is what the iPhone of 2007 should have been. That is, the current iPhone has finally caught up with mid-2000s technology levels. Sweet.

But hey, AT&T won't be lowering the rates any time soon. Customers keep complaining about the service, but AT&T will continue to charge it as long as customers keep bending over & begging for more.

I received my iPhone as a gift. I really appreciate the gift, but the iPhone sucks at being a phone. It has some great features and I appreciate the platform architecture, but the inability to send and receive photos to phone #s is rather pathetic.

The worst part is that whenever I mention it some fanboy will tell me to "just email it", as if simple compatibility with every other phone is too much to ask for.

As soon as this thing goes kaput for good (another white screen of death yesterday), I'll be moving on from apple phones.

Rapmaster2000:The worst part is that whenever I mention it some fanboy will tell me to "just email it", as if simple compatibility with every other phone is too much to ask for.

This.

The "just email it" response always reminds me of those furious, rabid Linux fanboys of the late 90s. Whenever someone would post a question like "What's the best way to play DVDs in Linux?", an avalanche of angry "PFFT, YOU'RE AN IDIOT, WHY DON'T YOU JUST RIP IT TO AVI AND THEN ENCODE IT USING DIVX YOU STUPID FREAKING NOOB MORON IDIOT LOSER!" responses.

Rapmaster2000:I received my iPhone as a gift. I really appreciate the gift, but the iPhone sucks at being a phone. It has some great features and I appreciate the platform architecture, but the inability to send and receive photos to phone #s is rather pathetic.

The worst part is that whenever I mention it some fanboy will tell me to "just email it", as if simple compatibility with every other phone is too much to ask for.

As soon as this thing goes kaput for good (another white screen of death yesterday), I'll be moving on from apple phones.

You realize that the phone can do that, and it's just AT&T blocking it... which was, like, the entire point of this thread, right?

Where are they spending all the money they have coming in with the surge of iPhone customers? Should they be allowed to sell a product that is crippled? Isn't this like selling a car then not giving the buyer access to a freeway (if Ford owned the on-ramps)?

That AT&T sucks is just a given at this point. All of the cell carriers suck in the US. Some laws need to changed to allow some competition.

In fact, AT&T is the No. 1 political contributor in the nation, spending an incredible $43.5 million since 1989 to buy influence in government. AT&T complains that it doesn't have the money to service its iPhone monopoly, while at the same time spending more than every other company on currying favor in Washington. That doesn't make sense.

Doesn't make sense? Obviously this guy doesn't understand economics. If you invested 43 million in infrastructure to improve your product you might increase customer happiness, create jobs, and sales. That's just going to get them back where they were in the first place with a bucket of money and too many customers to service. Of course they could invest it again, but then it's an endless cycle.

That article isnt entirely accurate, apple keeps all their work in house and refuses to release anything to AT&T so they cant find work arounds, apple wants AT&T to give them all their information so they can find the fixes but refuse to give information back to allow their engineers the chance to fix any issues.

Dont forget AT&T wireless is really just cingular wireless which was one of the most competent wireless providers out there.

Also, neither verizon or T-Mobile are in a position to handle the data traffic across their networks either, they could handle the voice with degraded quality but the data service would be worse.

Im just waiting for them to release the Pre to verizon first so it can over take the iphone, mainly because I hate apple for wanting to control every aspect of their devices. I find it ironic that the same people who say bill gates just wants a monopoly to control all the flow will flock to apple who locks all their devices down to where you have to use their products or youre SOL.

Let's see now... Apple had spaces (more like "ghettoes") in CompUSA stores set aside for their products for a while before they opened their own retail stores to the guffaws of business analysts who thought they couldn't possibly succeed. Apple's retail stores took off, and CompUSAs closed across the country.

Apple tried to design a cell phone with Motorola. It was little more than a pretty dog turd. So Apple designed their own cell phone and now it's taken off to the point where AT&T is struggling to provide the bandwidth.

If the pattern holds, and justice isn't dead, in about two years Apple will reveal that they have their own 4G network, starting in select cities and rolling out across the country.

Rapmaster2000:It has some great features and I appreciate the platform architecture, but the inability to send and receive photos to phone #s is rather pathetic.

I think the fact that I can't convert a sound file into a ring tone sucks. It comes from the inability to download an attachment in an email, something I could do with my Razr. I asked one of the geniuses at Best Buy and he shrugged his shoulders and suggested that there might be some software for that. So no, the iPhone isn't perfect by any means but I still like it.

/"sonar" ringtone isn't that bad I suppose//still wants the CTU ringtone back

Anyway, there's no way in hell I'd use an iPhone...Apple has exclusive rights in dealing with the phone itself, and AT&T has exclusive rights in dealing with the network itself. Your iPhone doesn't work? Expect to be bounced back between two companies pointing fingers.

floor9:WTF Indeed: Verizon. Yeah the phones suck, but I can make a call in the middle of farking nowhere and have it connect.

Sitting here with my enV Touch showing full service in my cube, while the on-call AT&T phone has to reside on the windowsill because it gets no service in my building.

Sweet.

Our on call AT&T phone is two floors up, plugged in to the wall with the number forwarded to a different phone. Whichever engineer is on call has to go up and change the forward number over to his cell. In the end we just decided it was easier than playing "find service" game.

At home, my wife's iPhone randomly goes from full signal in our bedroom, to analog to no service and back again. I've actually found it is easier to email her and tell her go find service and call me, than to try calling her cellphone. Good job AT&T.

/trying to get the wife addicted to my Omnia so I lure her off that shiat ass network